


Insensitive

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Insensitive [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-24
Updated: 2011-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:55:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames is a talented forger and a complete bad ass at fighting. It doesn't occur to anyone to ask why.</p><p>For the prompt: <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/13659.html?thread=31304027#t31304027">Eames can't feel pain. Everyone thinks it's awesome, until they realize it's not.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Insensitive

"That looks painful," Ariadne said with a wince, taking in Eames' leg. He was walking normally despite the stab wound, though the tourniquet she tied on kept the blood loss down.

Eames looked down at his leg, then shrugged at Ariadne. "I've been through worse," he said vaguely.

"When we get back, there's pain meds in the emergency kit," she offered.

"No need," he said, waving her off.

She tucked her hair behind her ears. "I'm sorry you got hurt because of me. I shouldn't have come along on this job," she said mournfully. "I almost screwed everything up."

"You served as a lovely distraction, Ariadne," Eames told her, patting her shoulder. "Now, there are likely more guards between us and the exit. Arthur and Dom probably got out already."

Ariadne understood now why Yusuf didn't go into the field, and why most architects didn't. She had been too curious for her own good; the subject for this job was a successful businessman that had donated a lot of money to her school. She had wondered if the money had been earned honestly or not, and had gone around in the man's subconscious looking for clues. It didn't matter that Arthur and Cobb had meant to extract completely different secrets; there were plenty of files in the office to look through. Eames had done a great job forging the man's wife, keeping him occupied during the dual raids.

When one of the man's projections caught her, she had pretended to flirt with him outside of the office party. Arthur and Cobb had definitely gotten what they were looking for, and had wondered where the subject's subconscious security had gone. Ariadne hadn't known the subject had a thing for petite brunettes, but she ran with it.

Leaving the subject's office in the real world had been difficult, however. He missed a meeting with a mob boss, who had been murderously upset at seeing the PASIV in Arthur's hands. Cobb and Arthur likely got out while Eames was shooting, and Ariadne had gotten caught by one of the subject's security officers. Once Eames had taken care of the mafioso, he wound up fighting hand to hand to get Ariadne back. He was stabbed in the process.

The rest of the way to the rented office space wasn't so fraught with danger or tension. Eames walked perfectly normally, no hint of pain in his step. Ariadne found it remarkable.

"Again?" Arthur asked when he saw the wound for himself. "I'll get the first aid kit. I guess it's not that horrible that we're out of lidocaine, then," he said with a shrug. "I'll get more eventually."

"Don't bother on my account," Eames replied with a shrug. "It doesn't hurt."

"It will once the shock wears off," Cobb warned.

"No, it won't," Eames said, sitting down with his pants around his ankles. Now that he removed Ariadne's tourniquet, the wound was bleeding again. He didn't flinch as Arthur started poking at the wound, cleaning it out to see if he needed to put in stitches. "Oh, that looks better already."

"Yeah, probably only three stitches this time. It isn't that deep."

Ariadne hung back uncertainly as Arthur insisted that Eames take off his bloody shirt for a full exam after he was done with the stitches. She wasn't sure if Eames was angry with her or not. "I'm sorry..."

"For the hundredth time, Ariadne, I'm all right," Eames told her, exasperated. "I wasn't shot and Arthur can patch me up. I'm _fine."_

"Good thing I insisted," Arthur muttered, reaching for towelettes. "Your back has another slice here. Nothing deep, so I won't need to stitch you up."

Cobb clapped Ariadne on the shoulder when she made a squeaking noise of dismay at the sight of the cut along Eames' back. "Just learn for next time."

Ariadne bought Eames pastries later that evening as they waited for Arthur to return from the bank. Cobb had brokered the deal with their employer for this job, and he was hanging back so that he wasn't visibly involved. He had brought his children to do some sight seeing, and he wanted no one linking his face to theirs. "If this is another apology..." he began in a playfully warning tone.

She laughed. "Only a little one. You saved my life, so this is a thank you, too."

"You're very welcome. Good architects are hard to find, you know."

"How's your leg?" she asked, settling down next to him. "It looked pretty bad. Much worse than your back anyway."

"Doing all right. Just a bandage at the end of the day. It wasn't that deep."

"Oh, good." She paused and they ate a pastry in companionable silence. "How about we go out for drinks later?"

"You still feeling guilty about that, hm?" Eames teased, grinning around his pastry. He laughed at her embarrassed nod. "It all goes with the territory. You should probably learn some hand to hand or get to a shooting range, actually. Just in case. This is a pretty good team, but most of the others in the business would never watch your back this way. You'll have to learn to do a lot of things on your own."

Arthur returned from the bank at that point. Eames looked up with a half smile, finishing off another pastry. "It took you long enough, Arthur. The good ones are gone already. Those are the payouts?"

"Yeah. You're taking Yusuf's out to Mombasa, right?" At Eames' nod, Arthur handed over two bank books. He gave Ariadne hers and kept one for himself. "I'll get Dom his share and head out. We should probably keep our heads down for the next week or so."

"Got another job lined up already?" Ariadne asked. Arthur nodded, and she smiled. "Great."

"You're definitely caught up in this business," Arthur teased. "We have to keep you busy. I'm going to check out the request first and start some of the background work. You two both get a bit of a vacation."

Ariadne laughed and Eames looked down at himself. "Not quite up to snuff for drinks, love. I'll have to get back to my hotel room to change first. I can meet you there."

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed. She noticed that Eames banged his wounded leg into a table on the way out. There was no wince of pain or change in his step. He had barely reacted to it, as a matter of fact. She didn't think much of that until he slipped on the icy stairs leading out of the warehouse, tumbling directly into the railing. His breath rushed out of his lungs, and Ariadne raced to his side. Eames waved her off and straightened his coat. "I should've looked where I was going a bit more carefully, is all," he said with a rueful shrug.

"After that beating you took today, that should hurt," Ariadne murmured. She touched his arm. "You don't have to be all macho for my benefit, you know."

Eames laughed, which made her feel better. "That little tumble? Pft." He patted her hand fondly. "Go play nursemaid to someone else, Ariadne. I appreciate the thought, but it's not very necessary. I've been taking care of myself for a very long time."

She flushed slightly. "Sorry. Oh, I mean, I shouldn't keep saying sorry..."

He laughed again, not unkindly. "Don't worry about it, Ariadne. Really. It's touching. Most people I've worked with in the past were selfish bastards. It's nice to have someone else be concerned for a change." He patted her arm. "Now, let me head off to change. I'll meet you in a half hour."

***

He wasn't there.

Ariadne frowned and checked her phone. No messages or texts. She wondered if perhaps he went to the wrong bar, even if this was the one they had gotten drinks at during the planning stages of this particular job. She fired off a quick text-- _where r u? im waiting at our table._ \-- and kept an eye on the door.

Another half hour went by with no sign of Eames, and she started to worry. She hit the button for Arthur's number on her speed dial, her eyes still fixed on the door in case she was being silly and concerned for no reason. "Arthur," she said with relief when he picked up. "Have you seen Eames?"

"I saw him an hour or so ago when I gave him his payout. Why?"

"He was supposed to meet me for drinks, and he's late. I'm worried."

"Ariadne..." Arthur began with a sigh.

"What if the mobsters that beat him up saw him leaving the warehouse? What if that's why he's not here?"

"Wait, what?" Arthur asked, concern suddenly in his voice. "He was beat up? He never mentioned that to me."

"That's why he was stabbed and cut up. Eames took a lot of really nasty hits to the chest and gut, but he kept on going. It was amazing. He never once reacted at all. I thought it was adrenaline, but I mean, he fought harder than you do."

Arthur blew out a breath. "Shit. He should've told me he got beaten that badly."

"Why? What's going on, Arthur?"

He didn't answer her. She could almost hear him thinking over the phone. "He said he was going to his hotel room, right?"

"Yes."

"I'll meet you there. My flight to Berlin is in the morning, so I probably don't need to cancel it."

"What are you talking about? Why is it so serious?" A horrible thought occurred to her. "Do you think the subject is on to us? Is that it?"

"It's that or something else. I know Dom and the kids are safe, since no one knows he had anything to do with this. Just head to his hotel room. I'll meet you there."

Ariadne stared at her phone with a feeling of dread when Arthur hung up. There was tension in his voice, something that hadn't been there even during the impromptu stitching and checking for more wounds at the warehouse.

That tension made her run to his hotel room and knock at the door even before Arthur got there. She looked up at him with a pained expression. "No answer," she said as she knocked again. Arthur pursed his lips unhappily and banged on the door hard enough to make her jump.

Still no answer.

The door was locked; Ariadne had checked first thing for that. Arthur didn't bother. He kicked in the door and rushed inside, his Glock in hand with his finger over the trigger guard, just in case there was someone there besides Eames. Ariadne shut the door behind them and looked around with wide eyes.

Eames wasn't a painfully neat man, but there was always an order to the clutter in his work spaces. His hotel room was the same way. His bloodied clothes were on the floor in a pile near the trash bin, as there was no way he could salvage them. The dresser drawers were half open, clothes inside of them. The television was off, the bed was still made from housekeeping's visit earlier in the day. The bathroom light was on, and Ariadne could see his toiletries scattered on the counter.

Arthur's stance eased and he let out a pained sigh. Eames had collapsed to the floor, arms stretched out and his breathing shallow. He was dreadfully pale, and Ariadne rushed to his side as Arthur put up his gun. His fingers found Eames' pulse in his throat, and she looked at him in dismay. "Thready. He must have been hurt pretty badly, maybe internal damage."

"Why wouldn't he say anything?" Ariadne whispered as Arthur pulled up the new shirt Eames had put on. Florid black and blues were forming across his chest and abdomen, particularly around the side that was against the floor. "Just kept beating on that man and making jokes to calm me down on our way back to the warehouse..."

"He wouldn't have wanted you to worry," Arthur muttered, reaching for his cell phone. "I think he has internal bleeding. He needs a hospital or he's going to bleed out and die."

Ariadne watched him with wide eyes as he called for medical assistance in flawless French. Looking around, she stuffed the bloody clothes into the trash. They were criminals, she had to remind herself. As much as she could try to pretty it all up and justify what she was doing, she was still aiding and abetting criminal activity. Authorities would toss them all into jail in a heartbeat for what they did today. "What are we going to say?"

He adjusted his sweater and coat to hide his holster and gun more effectively. "A little of the truth, to be honest. He was beat up earlier today and never mentioned how bad it was. We could say he was mugged and didn't bother to report it. The police would believe that. We'll say he was supposed to meet us for drinks. The bartender would remember you waiting if you need an alibi."

Her stomach dropped to her toes and she reached out to touch Eames' face gently. "Do you think he'll be okay?"

"I hope so," Arthur said softly.

Neither tried to get their hopes up when they heard the wail of an ambulance in the distance.

***

Eames was taken directly to the trauma room of the hospital, and Arthur and Ariadne were relegated to the waiting area near the emergency room. "I didn't think to check him for other wounds," Arthur told Ariadne. She could hear the self-condemnation in his voice. "I knew about the congenital analgesia. I should have checked."

"The what?"

"He doesn't talk about it," Arthur said, dropping into one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs. "I only found out by accident on another job we were working on together a few years ago. He needed me to help check his back for wounds. He can't feel pain. That's partly why he fights better than I do. He doesn't pull back when he gets hurt, and just keeps on going." Arthur scrubbed at his face tiredly. "I should have checked him better. I should have realized the fight would have been worse than he said..."

Ariadne sighed at the castigation in his voice. "You couldn't have known, Arthur. None of us knew. He couldn't feel it."

"All the more reason for us not to believe him when he says he's fine. I keep forgetting about that because he usually handles himself well enough not to get hurt that badly. And he usually checks himself out." He gave a shaky laugh. "Hell, _I_ even checked him out, and I didn't think to ask about the bruising."

Ariadne sat down beside him and let out a heavy sigh. "Why doesn't he talk about it? If I'd known, I'd never have let him go after he fell on the stairs tonight."

"He fell?" Ariadne nodded. "Maybe that's what did it..." His voice trailed off as someone came into the room looking for them. "I think that's the surgeon."

While the surgeon seemed to be taking pains to spare them the gory details, Arthur and Ariadne were able to fill them in for themselves. Eames had several cracked ribs, and his twelfth and eleventh ribs had broken. His spleen had ruptured from the break, so he had started bleeding into his abdominal cavity. If Ariadne and Arthur hadn't found him when they did, he would have bled to death internally within another few hours. Still unconscious, he was in guarded condition and would be sent to the ICU stepdown unit.

Ariadne covered her mouth with her hands in shock. Only a few hours ago, they were teasing each other as if it was a normal day. Then because he had been beaten up and then crashed into a staircase railing he had a ruptured spleen. He nearly died, and even now something could still happen. They couldn't even go up to see him yet, since it was after visiting hours.

"I'll cancel my flight," Arthur said quietly as he pulled out his cell phone.

"No," she murmured, putting a hand on his arm. "He'd be so mad at you if you did that."

Arthur shook his head. "It's my job to look after the team."

She nodded and dialed Yusuf to tell him about the wound and the hospital stay, which would delay his payment. "Foolish man," Yusuf said with a sigh. "He always thinks he's invincible, that one. I'm in the middle of something here, so I can't leave for the next few days. Is he still going to be in the hospital?"

"I think so. Arthur's putting off a new job for us to stay, too."

"I could be persuaded to work with you all again when it comes through," Yusuf said, smile evident in his voice.

She smiled in spite of herself. "I miss you, too, Yusuf."

"You were all good to work with. But I'm not going into the field again," he said firmly. "Especially not when there's risk of bodily harm. I don't know how to fight the way Eames does."

"I don't think anyone does," Ariadne murmured, thinking of Arthur's comment about fighting.

"That could be," Yusuf said. She could almost imagine him shrugging. "I'll call you back when I have my flight scheduled."

"Great. See you soon."

"So Yusuf's coming up?" Arthur asked when she got off the phone. It had been a simple thing to cancel his flight, as the hospital had wifi. He nodded when she did. "Hopefully the surgeon will fix things," he muttered, rubbing at his jaw.

"Why wouldn't he say he can't feel pain?"

"How often does that come up in conversation?" Arthur pointed out. Ariadne opened her mouth and then shut it. "Exactly." He let out a sigh. "Come on. Let's get you back to your apartment. I'll pick you up tomorrow and we'll come back during visiting hours. He should be awake by then."

***

Eames was pale and lying very still in the hospital bed, wires and leads all over him. There were two liters of saline in his arm; the blood transfusions had been completed overnight. He took in the serious faces in front of him and was surprised. He never thought anyone would worry about him off of a job, let alone on it, yet here they were. Ariadne looked as if she had been crying all night and he knew for a fact that Arthur should have left the country already. "To what do I owe this honor?" he began.

To his consternation, Ariadne had tears in her eyes and she shook her head. Arthur merely sighed and sat down heavily in one of the chairs beside the hospital bed. "You almost _died,"_ Ariadne said, her voice quavering.

"That wasn't the plan, if it makes you feel any better," Eames replied, shrugging.

"No, it doesn't. You didn't say how hurt you were, and you didn't even know you were bleeding when you left. If we hadn't made plans..." She bit her lip. "You almost died," she repeated in a hoarse whisper.

Eames sighed. "What do you want me to say? It's not as if slipping on stairs led to this before."

"You had five cracked ribs from that fight yesterday," Arthur said tightly. "Why didn't you tell me about the beating? I thought it was just the stab wounds."

Rolling his eyes Eames sighed again. "You knew we were compromised. Did you think the bloke was just talking at us?"

"Eames," Arthur said sharply, eyes blazing with suppressed anger. "I trust you to handle yourself when shit happens, but I also trust you to _tell me_ about this kind of thing. No job is worth dying over."

"So says the man that loves the job," Eames replied with a snort.

"Did you think we wouldn't care what happens to you?" Ariadne asked, her own temper starting to rise. She couldn't understand why he was being so flippant.

"Why should you?" he asked. There was no particular inflection in his voice, as if he truly didn't expect her to care.

"If it wouldn't possibly tangle up those wires, I'd hit you right now for being so stupid!" Ariadne cried.

"What she means to say," Arthur began dryly, "is that we might not all be best friends, but it's another to assume that we'd leave you bleeding to death."

Eames raised an eyebrow at him, clearly not convinced. "Well, _she_ might not," he replied, pointing a thumb in Ariadne's direction, "but she's new. I know not to trust anyone else in the business. They're all out for themselves. Even your precious Dom Cobb. Maybe especially with him."

Arthur didn't flush, exactly, but he leaned back in his chair and appeared unsettled. "What are you talking about?" Ariadne asked, curious.

"You were with us on the Fischer job, darling. Don't tell me you've forgotten his appalling behavior," Eames drawled, settling himself back in the hospital bed.

"Well, no. He didn't say anything about the risks he was making us take." She saw Eames' pointed stare and Arthur's absent expression. "You mean he was always like that?"

"Not always," Arthur began.

"Enough that I knew better than to trust him. Bad enough stupid shite like this can kill me. Do you really expect me to put myself out there and serve as cannon fodder for people in the field? Yes, I can take a hit. I've had to learn how to, after all." Eames let out a gusty sigh at Ariadne's stricken expression. "I feel pressure, but no pain. It's helpful in taking a hit and keeping on in a fight, but I don't know how much damage I take. I don't know if the next one will knock me down and keep me there. I'm on my own in the field, Ariadne. This team approach isn't normal."

"It's not?" she asked, looking between the two men. Arthur shook his head, confirming it. "Oh. I thought... Well, I thought it always worked that way."

"You get the players you need for a job and vanish when it's over," Eames said with a shrug. "It's the nature of the business, you have to understand. So I have to look after myself. I can't trust anyone else to do it."

Ariadne sat down on the other side of Eames' hospital bed and carefully took one of his hands in hers. "I'm not like that. Maybe we're not exactly close friends, but we've been in each others' heads. I'd never do anything like that, and you know Arthur wouldn't, even if he's blind to Cobb's issues." Eames snorted and grinned at Arthur's discomfort. "And I'm sure when Yusuf arrives tomorrow, he'll tell you the same thing."

"What? He's coming here?"

"Of course he is," Ariadne told him, as if he should have known that. "He wanted to be sure you were all right."

"We're not a bad bunch," Arthur told him quietly. "Cobb was really surprised when I told him how badly you were hurt. You know we wouldn't have left you to rot. We'd've helped."

"I suppose," Eames said slowly. He looked between the two of them. "You're still putting me out in front for the physical security, though, aren't you?"

"You're a better fighter than I am," Arthur began. Eames looked away. "But you wouldn't be going out there alone. You wouldn't have been this time, either, if things went according to plan. This was an anomaly, Eames. I would never hamstring my team that way."

Touched, Eames didn't know what to say.

Ariadne gave his hand a squeeze. "The doctors were saying you'd be here another few days. I hope it's not terribly presumptuous of me, but I cleared out your hotel room last night and threw your things in my closet." Arthur and Eames looked at her in surprise. "No point in paying for a hotel room you're not using, right? They had a credit card on file, so they didn't need me to do anything. I'll get everything washed up before you're out of the hospital."

"Thank you," Eames said quietly. "I didn't expect that sort of thing."

"I'll help with the dry cleaning bills," Arthur told her. He shrugged at Eames' questioning expression. "Let's get you taken care of, Eames."

He smiled slowly. "Just like that?"

"We're a team. Why shouldn't we help you?" Arthur replied, shrugging again.

"You don't do that for everyone," he pointed out.

"Just the ones that count," Ariadne said with a smile.

"In that case, I'm flattered."

"You're meant to be," she replied with a grin. She leaned forward impulsively and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "They're going to kick us out soon, but I did want to make sure you're okay. We'll be back for evening visiting hours, and we'll bring Yusuf with us when he arrives."

"Thank you, both of you. I mean it." He clearly wasn't used to this kind of situation, and they gave him encouraging smiles.

Eames settled back on the hospital bed and looked at all the machinery around him. He was looking forward to their visits. He trusted them, which was a pleasant change. Perhaps this was a team he could work with regularly. It would be nice not to be concerned about people he worked with. "Oi, Ariadne," he called out, a half smile on his face. She turned as she was heading out of the door, a questioning look on her face. "Now that we've both saved each others' lives, we're even. But feel free to smuggle me those awesome pastries from the other day. Hospital food is bloody awful."

Laughing, Ariadne nodded. "Absolutely."

The End


End file.
